User Reviews

Perhaps the most brilliant feat of the human mind is its ability to make connections between many disparate pieces of information, with which it finds pattern and meaning, making sense of the chaotic and often terrifying reality it inhabits.

This film is a virtuosic display of that ability. Comprised mostly of archival footage and pop music from the era, it tells the history of the United States from the late 50s onward using recurring characters like Rock Hudson, Lee Harvey Oswald, Saddam Hussein, Enos The Chimp, and Phil Spector. It is a haunting collage of a nation's innocence at the brink of disintegration in the murk of an impending nightmare it had helped to create for itself and the rest of the world.

If you're into Negativland, you'll probably be into this.

This was one of the best things I've seen in a long time, after 10 minutes I was so absorbed into what was displayed in front of me that I couldn't do anything else than just sit there and get sucked right in.

I am a human being that has questioned the western world's terror like behavior and often asked myself why we are so violent and builds everything around violence? This movie kinda just connected the dots between various things that has happened up 'til now and it follows the same agenda thru the history of our society.

You are not being controlled and lead by a voice, this movie only contains pictures and various clips (and in some places text to help you along on this ride) and its just a brilliant piece of work.

I loved it when it was being narrated via text on screen. But most of the time it's not, and it can be hard to follow.

Adam Curtis is serving up a lot of symbolism and metaphors and other clever stuff via stock footage and music. There's a lot of subtext. Some of it I get. But a lot of it passes me by because I don't recognize exactly what is on the screen, like there'll be footage of some guy speaking surrounded by reporters but I don't know who the guy is so I can't understand whats being said with the footage of him in combination with the music being played or why the reporters are asking him those particular questions.

What I'm trying to say is, this is a great movie but you need to know a lot of 19th century history, especially american, for it to make sense because most of it isn't narrated. If you can't tell what's on the screen a lot of the time it's gonna get boring and a bit frustrating, as it did for me. I recommend watching Adam Curtis's other documentaries beforehand, they are easier to follow and will, to some degree, prepare you for this one.

So yeah, my problems with this documentary were largely due to my own ignorance. But I'm not that ignorant, so if this is a problem for me it's probably gonna be a problem for a lot of people, especially those under the age of 40.

I just watched "It felt like a kiss". It is shocking. Not as in revelatory, but as in violent. I felt disgusted, and I don't remember the last time I felt like that. I often watch documentaries and enjoy sci-fi, probably as a child. I want to stress that this is not a compliment*. It's like everything between the texts has no other purpose than to shock. Why would I want to watch that man crawling and burning? What will it teach me that I didn't know about human suffering? Unnecessary. And then you cut in scenes of children, why? "The Century of Self" is one of my favorite documentaries, but this one didn't warrant the mental scarring it gave me. *You wield great power when you assemble your visuals. Just like musicians do when they write and compose songs. You've abused your power. That is all.